Drill baby drill!

Rigs targeting oil in the U.S. advanced to an 18-month high as drilling surged in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico.

Oil rigs rose by five to 1,430, the most since August 2012, data posted on Baker Hughes Inc.’s website show. The gas count dropped by seven to 335, a 19-year low, the Houston-based field services company said. Rigs in the Permian, the largest onshore oil basin in the U.S., jumped by six to 493, with those drilling horizontally for oil gaining seven to 255, the highest since at least February 2011.

Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have unlocked shale deposits of oil across the U.S., and drilling efficiencies have helped boost rig yields to record volumes from the Permian to North Dakota’s Bakken play. The surge in output helped the U.S. meet 86 percent of its energy needs in the first 11 months of 2013, the highest level since 1986, EIA data show.

“We’re getting far more output for far less input,” Ed Breiner, chief executive officer at West Chester, Pennsylvania- based rig-maker Schramm Inc., said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg’s Houston office. “It’s a matter of margin enhancement.”

The Permian Basin is now home to 29 percent of all onshore oil and gas rigs, the most in any play, Baker Hughes data show.

Optimizing Output

“They’re learning more about how to best optimize production out of the various formations that they’re taking oil out of in the Permian,” James Williams, president of energy consulting firm WTRG Economics in London, Arkansas, said by telephone. “They’re keeping their market share of the oil rigs.”